The ability to tell.
The ability to distinguish.
One of the most critical skills as a trader, or even anyone living in the 21st century is that of being able to distinguish between reality vs delusion. To distinguish between trading truth vs falsehood.
The trading truth leads to profitable trades and thus trading success. The trading delusions and falsehoods leads to pain and suffering.
As there is just so much trading information generated every single day, week, month and year.
Just think of all the forex news articles, interviews, tweets, videos, forum posts, etc. The number just keeps rising every year. Anyone with some account on some website can post something. But does that make it true? Is what they are saying and posting coming from real trading wisdom? Is what they are saying and posting – measurably moving you towards trading success and profits or not? That is the question!
What prompted this blog post was my talk with someone who was many decades older than me. He was a bag of market delusions. He had so many of them. Constant criticism of the money managers. That they are a bunch of thieves.
I was talking to him about someone who bought a large amount of a certain stock. And he instantly went negative – saying the stock is going to fall, etc. That you put your money in the market and some mysterious force sucks all your money away, etc.
I would try to teach this person about how and why prices move. But it’s clear there is a lot of anger inside of him. It’s clear that this man has no genuine desire to learn about how and why prices move. So no point in trying.
Luckily I was only exposed to this drivel for 5 or 10 minutes. But still, that is 5 or 10 minutes too much.
On another occasion over the past few months, I finished my market research on Friday afternoon and my work day was done. I met up with a friend of a family member who I had not seen in many years. And he started to tell me his “market insights” that he thought he had. That with the stock market being at an all time high, that “now is the time to buy puts.” This is what he told me.
Since I had just finished my market research an hour or two before, all the relevant information was fresh in my mind, and I knew what this man was saying was not true.
When I left the office that Friday night, the stock market closed at the top tick of the day, and at an all time record high. An all time record high. And I did not see any bearish scenario worth betting on. But still this man (who is delusional) persisted and insisted that this was the time to buy puts. I was trying to explain to him why I did not believe that was an accurate assessment of market conditions, but it’s clear he doesn’t have any genuine desire to see another perspective. So I just blessed him and let go. He had no special market strategy or secret sauce. The only thing he had was market delusions.
And yes, the stock market kept on marching higher after that day.
On another occasion I was talking to someone who thought that someone only makes money with insider trading, etc. And I knew extensively about the person they were talking about and I knew such claims were not true. The hedge fund manager was legit. I knew that because I had done the research and had extensive knowledge about this person, PLUS, I was able to use the trading strategy in my own account and place a sequence of profitable trades. So I knew the hedge fund manager was a true success.
But this delusional man I was talking to, persisted in his delusional beliefs. Turns out this was the same man who a few years earlier roamed around in some trading forum, got excited about some system there, and loaded up on a trading account with a few thousand dollars and used a crazy high leverage and wiped out.
I guess he didn’t get much smarter over the years.
Develop Time Management and Mental Defenses
So how do you protect yourself from these situations?
There are a few different ways. You must develop more effective time management and also mental defenses.
The best way is to just not talk to these people in the first place. Not spent time with them. Why should you have to spent time on such delusional market philosophy being spewed by someone? You have so many better things to do.
Here’s a story for you: I learned a lot in my first few years from one of my trading mentors with the information they put out. Eventually I surpassed their knowledge and skill. A few opportunities came up where I could work with him on various projects, but I declined to do so. Why was that? Because I felt that this trader, even though I learned a lot my first few years, had way too many trading delusions, and I was not fond of the friends he kept, etc. So I avoided him. And I felt that was the right decision.
Now, sometimes this is not always possible – 100% of the time. We live with many other people in this world, and throughout your lifetime, you may encounter some of these folks.
So the next best thing – is to limit time with them. There were many times when my family would be having a party and celebration, and if I was forced to attend and I wasn’t thrilled with the conversation and what was going on, I would limit my time spent there. Instead of spending 6 hours there, I might spend 3 hours there. Instead of spending 4 hours there, I might spend 2 hours there. So I would get in some family time as best as I could, and then I would leave them to do their thing, which gave me more time to do my market research and personal growth.
So in the case of the story referenced earlier in this article, I was able to limit the exposure to delusions to only 5 or 10 minutes. Which is a lot better than spending 30 minutes or an hour with such a person. I limited the damage.
So those are some simple time management strategies you can use.
You should also develop mental skills and mental defenses as well. So if you have to be with such people, you know how to instantly cancel out their delusional beliefs. And then after you are finished spending time with them, you can instantly refocus your mind on your amazing and successful trading philosophy and strategies and have all of that flash in your mind.
One of the things I have learned over the years is not to spend too much time trying to teach people how to trade, if I believe they lack desire, if they lack genuine desire. I may only give such a person I meet only a very shortened version, say 3 minutes or a 30 second version. Or perhaps I might decline to tell them at all, and just change the subject to something else. My time is better spent elsewhere, for example with people here on this website who really want to learn how to trade.
Take an example of when I was at a family members home. They had a friend over and this person asked me about how I pick stocks, my trading system, philosophy, etc. And I gave him the 3 minute version of my trading journey. I condensed my journey, right there on the spot to 3 minutes. I was quite proud of myself at how clearly I explained it, all impromptu. I gave him the best 3 minutes of trading and investing information that man will ever probably get. But that was the end of it. I didn’t think he had any desire after that, so I declined to go further. I could have tried to sell him on one of my trading courses, etc, but I felt he wasn’t nowhere near my ideal customer.
Avoiding the Forum Crowd, Avoiding the Delusions
Still, not very many are practicing these simple and effective strategies. I still see lots of aspiring traders stuck in the forum crowd, with other delusional traders.
The forum crowd, most of them are in delusion. The land of the blind being led by the slightly less blind. Most of them are not going to break out of that vicious cycle. Not that they can’t do it. Every single one of them could do it – breakout into massive trading success. But if they are still in the trading forums, and there is a lack of good information and strategies there, then they can struggle to do it.
The plugging themselves into the electrifying trading information, must come from sources other than the trading forums. Most of my trading strategies don’t come from the trading forums. They came from books, articles, my own personal trading journey and journal, and massive action on my part. That’s how I developed my trading strategies. Not from roaming the trading forums for dozens of hours in a week. You can find my trading strategies in the Order Flow Mastery Course.
There could be an amazing trade coming in the near future, that the forum crowd misses out on… because they are focused on the delusions in the forums, rather than on doing the simple process, to find the good trades.
I even had a family member on several occasions, continue to use the trading forums and tell me about some hot new trading system that he found. This is after I gave him some trading signals and he made good money on them. For this man, it did not “click” in his mind that the trading strategy used to generate such profitable trades, was nowhere to be found on any trading forums. He didn’t realize that. And he kept on spending some of his spare time on the trading forums.
You can find such a system in The Order Flow Mastery Course.
So make no mistake about it, this is one of the battles being fought in your life every day. It’s not just a battle between the bulls and the bears in EUR/USD or USD/JPY and figuring out which side is going to be more aggressive and going to win out. There is also the battle of the information that leads to trading success vs the delusional information and philosophies that lead to pain and suffering. And both kinds of information come from people. People generate both the truthful and delusional information. So you have to be on guard every day of your life. Once you get good, it happens automatically and effortlessly and you don’t have to expend a lot of energy to do that. When you get good, you can “instantly know.”
On a final note, I will end with this rule I have lived by and it has served me well:
Don’t let any delusional person, whether in the forums, or on the street, or in your family, keep you from making $50k, $500k or more trading the financial markets. You don’t let them sabotage your success like that. You learn how to bless them, let go, compartmentalize and go on your own journey to making your fortune.
And you don’t have to do it alone. You can get the jumpstart you have been looking for – by clicking here. It includes all the strategies you need for fighting the profit-sucking delusional people, and for finding the big moves in the market!
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